How to Cover Deck Boards With Hardwood Floors

If you want to turn a porch or other exterior area into an interior room, you'll have all kinds of major projects to undertake -- new walls, crawlspace, insulation, electricity. Among the last and most important will be your flooring. Hardwood floors shouldn't be laid directly over decking boards, because the tongue-and-groove flooring needs a smooth, unbroken underlayment to prevent movement. But with the addition of a plywood underlayment over the decking, there's no reason you can't put down any kind of hardwood flooring you want.

Pencil
1/2 plywood underlayment
1 1/4-inch wood screws
2-inch wood screws
Flooring felt in rolls
Hand-held stapler
Tongue-and-groove wood flooring
Carpenter's glue
Drill
1/8-inch bit
Screwdriver bit
Miter saw
Rented floor stapler with compression tank
Mallet

Instructions

- 1
  Remove all trim and other obstructions from the floor. Mark on the walls, near the floor, to show where the joists are running underneath the decking. If you can't see the joists through spaces in the decking, determine where they are by following the nail patterns or going underneath the deck to determine the locations.
- 2
  Lay your plywood underlayment with 2-inch wood screws, gluing it down with carpenter's glue and making sure the edges are meeting on joists. Sink screws every 6 inches along every joist. Sink 1 1/4-inch screws every few feet over non-joist areas as well, securing the plywood to the decking.
- 3
  Roll flooring felt over the whole room, stapling it down. Start laying your flooring planks against one wall, tongue-side out, leaving a half-inch of space from the wall to allow the wood in the floor to expand. Screw down the first few courses using your drill and 1 1/4-inch screws in the face of the boards, locking each new course into the previous one by tapping the groove against the tongue with your mallet. Cut the end pieces with your miter saw as needed.
- 4
  Bring in the floor stapler as soon as it will fit on the courses you've laid (generally, three or four courses will be necessary). Affix the subsequent courses by setting the floor stapler on the tongue edge and hitting the trigger-pad with the mallet to drive in the staple.
- 5
  Continue using the floor stapler to lay the rest of the floor. When you're too close to the opposing wall to swing the mallet, affix the last few courses by hand, as you did for the first few. Leave a half-inch a space at the far wall, as before.

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